Watching My Mental Health Implode Along with the Submersible
THE DILEMMA | Volume 39
WHAT I’M WATCHING
I feel like I haven’t been watching a lot of TV recently, but when I want to have some entertainment with my dinner I’ve been turning on an episode of the Other Two on Max (RIP HBO Max, you are missed). It’s a series about two siblings, Cary and Brooke, who live in the shadow of their younger brother Chase Dreams, and, later on, their mother, Pat (played by the incomparable Molly Shannon), while they are desperate for their own big breaks in the industry. The first two seasons saw Cary and Brooke at the bottom of the food chain in their respective media careers and the comedy came of the ridiculous hoops they had to jump through just for an audition or a meeting, meanwhile their younger brother was just handed stardom because of a viral video of a mediocre song.
The latest season is a different story. Now that both Cary and Brooke have a taste of what it’s like to be successful in their fields, they become the very people they once made fun of. I love the twist in character and seeing them transform into monsters came about very organically in the story. In one episode, Brooke is determined to host a telethon charity event to “do good,” but throughout the course of the live television event has to find a way to fire Ben Platt from the show for being gay so that she can keep the funds from a conservative’s generous sponsorship. A lot of the references and scenarios feel very niche to the media world, which is why I think it works so well. The surrealist elements really heighten how ridiculous media can be. My favorite bit from this season has to be when Pat’s kids try to treat her to a normal meal at a fake Applebee’s and she slowly loses her mind because there’s one too many things slightly out of place. There are also so many great celebrity cameos this season, from Edie Falco to Kiernan Shipka to Lukas Gage — it’s fun to see them playing an over the top version of themselves. It’s a great show if you’re looking for something light to watch, but don’t get too attached. Unfortunately, it was just cancelled by Max (HBO Max please come back).
WHAT I’M LISTENING TO
Sometimes the Internet can be good. That’s what my latest hyper-fixation song has taught me. I’m not on TikTok but I feel like most viral videos on that platform somehow make its way to me through the natural osmosis of social media via Twitter or Instagram, which is how I found this viral song by an artist called corook featuring Olivia Barton. When I saw it, it had been stitched to death by a bunch of other TikTok musicians chiming in with their own little instruments to contribute to the arrangement, which gave it this folksy bayou sound. The song became so popular that corook and Olivia recorded it and released it on all music streaming platforms. This very recording is what led to my demise in music taste for several weeks.
Whenever I got in the car, whenever I did my makeup in the morning, whenever I started cooking — this song was playing on my iPhone. I think it’s the chanting way that they sing it because it brings me back to like campfire sing-a-longs or something. Even though the recording is not of the best quality, it still has that jubilant sound to it. I love the addition of the bridge the most: “How lucky are we / Of all the fish in the sea / You get to be you / And I get to be me.” The harmonies and the shouty ad-libs really give it a carefree spirit that you can’t help but smile when you listen to it. Please indulge in my hyper-fixation song with me so I feel less like a loser.
WHAT I’M READING
I simply have to revisit the wildest newsweek we have had in a minute. I can’t remember the last time it felt like everyone was following the same news story at once. Even my boss put off a morning of work because he, and I quote, “can’t stop reading about this stupid fucking submarine.” If you were living under a rock, a private company, OceanGate, was the subject of a media frenzy after its latest submersible — what I have to assume is a aluminum foil can held together by super glue and prayers to Celine Dion - went missing miles deep in the ocean on its journey to look at the sunken remains of the Titanic ship.
There are many crucial elements to this story. The CEO of the company was warned by the government that the conditions would be extremely dangerous to passengers should they go too deep in the ocean, but since the company is private they don’t have to technically abide by government regulations. The CEO admitting that he “broke some rules” to make the submersible happen. The cost of a ticket on the submersible was $250,000, which if you really break down the math is what an iced coffee is to us to a billionaire. The submersible was piloted by the use of a Logitech game controller. All passengers have to sign a waiver that mentions death three times on the first page. Another passenger, a teenager, was terrified to go and only went because his dad wanted to and it was Father’s Day. In the aftermath, Mr. Beast for some reason had to throw his name in the mix and tell everyone that he was invited on the trip. I could go on and on - discovering new things about this trip is like peeling back an onion. There’s so many layers and the smell is fucking foul. If nothing else, at the very least the submersible united us all as a nation for the first time in a while.
WHAT I’M EATING
I resorted to cooking a struggle meal, which is very unlike me. I am pretty good at planning out my grocery trips and my meals for the week, but lately I have been slacking. Hence, the purpose of a struggle meal: it’s there for you when you’re struggling. My mom actually taught me this recipe when I started eating tuna sandwiches as a child and I’ve adapted it into my own version.
It’s a tuna pasta salad for lack of a better name. Basically, you cook your pasta to your liking and then, when you strain it, you run it under cool water to get the temperature down. Then, you take some cans of tuna and some thawed peas and mix it together with the pasta, mayo, a little bit of honey mustard, and salt and pepper and voila! You have a little pasta salad. I’d imagine it would also be good with a chicken salad substitute or if you’re completely plant-based you could add some smashed chickpeas for the consistency. However you want to make it, it’s a quick and filling meal that’s super reliable because it will be with ingredients you typically have in your kitchen. It makes for really good leftovers, too because it’s better when its been sitting in the fridge overnight: the sauce congeals together and it really soaks into the peas and pasta. It’s a perfect struggle meal for the summer because it’s cold and savory after a long, hot day.
WHAT I’M FEELING
This is not the first time I’ve brought up cleaning in a newsletter, and it certainly won’t be the last. I’ve really hated cleaning for the past couple of months. There are times where the amount of junk I’ve spread all over my bedroom has piled up so much that I can’t see the floor. Doing the bare minimum of putting dishes in the dish washer feels like I’m Sisyphus rolling that boulder up the hill over and over again. I hate vacuuming and moping, so I just watch the dirt pile up on the floors with each passing day. My bathroom has been suffering the most, where I just let grime build up over time and then it becomes so disgusting that I’m ashamed to even use it.
You would think that feeling so awful in my own house for weeks on end would be motivation enough to at the very least pick up all my dirty clothes and throw them in the hamper. To be honest, it took the thought of having other people over to my apartment to make me deep clean the space. Now that I spent several hours cleaning, scrubbing, vaccuuming, organizing, et cetera, it feels so good to lie down in my bed and take in the clean space around me. I think it’s important for me to remember these moments where I feel relaxed in my room because I cleaned it. Maybe next time I’ll remember how good it is and not wait so long to clean it. Most likely I’ll just never learn from these moments and then when I go into another spiral, I’ll wonder what could have helped prevented it. The circle of life, I suppose.
MEME OF THE WEEK
I like how uncomfortable this meme makes me when I look at it because I imagine how uncomfortable I’ve just made the person I sent it to, so it creates this nice toxic cycle. Obviously the Sailor Moon thing is from some horny person online, but that image paired with the text of being beautiful and sexy and always right gives it a kind of mystical element. I like using it in group chats when I’m fighting for my life, like when I told my sisters how bad I was at playing Legend of Zelda and they tried to shame me for it.
